Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Pope's redemption for one of our favourite sinners.

Former high flier and jailbird Rodney Adler has been granted an audience with Pope Benedict XVI in a meeting arranged by the late Michael Jackson's friend Rabbi Shmuley Boteach.

Michael and the Rabbi

Adler was released from jail in 2007 after serving nearly 3 years for his part in the largest corporate collapse in Australia when the giant insurance company HIH went belly-up owing $5 billion . Until then he and wife Lyndi were two of the leading lights in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs social scene.

Adler's connections were far and wide. Guests at a charity gala in a circus marquee in Rose Bay in 1998 were startled when Adler arrived with Mikhail & Raisi Gorbachev on his arm after flying them into town in his corporate jet.

In 2000 he and Lyndi Adler hosted a turn of the century bash at their Bellevue Hill mansion (tSS attended and whisked visiting actress Sarah Michelle Gellar off to the Opera House gala for the fireworks display) .In 2002 Rodney hosted a dinner in his Waldorf Apartment in New York for Bill Clinton.

Lyndi & Rodney Adler

Adler has know Rabbi Shmuley for years and once stayed with him and his family at Jackson's Neverland Ranch for a week.

3 months into his jail sentence Adler was reprimanded after it was discovered he was conducting business from his cell. During the last 18 months of his incarceration he says he found peace teaching young Arab inmates how to control financial matters. Adler had said he feared being jailed as a high profile Jew.

He's kept a fairly low profile since leaving the St Heliers Correctional Centre in the Hunter Valley and now concentrates on charity work and is on the board of the Raisi Gorbachev Foundation. He has also set up a charity to assist displaced Palestinian families.

Adler was part of Rabbi Shmuley's delegation to the Vatican to garner the Pope's assistance in his 'TurnFriday Night into Family Night'' initiative which aims to get parents of all faiths to spend Friday nights at home with their family.

On his website the Rabbi says "Rodney emphasised to the Pope the importance of partnering with me on
creating an international family dinner night and how much he believed
in the idea and The Pope ''warmly agreed''. You can also purchase some of the Rabbi's work there including The Michael Jackson Tapes, hislecture on Desperate Housewives given in Melbourne in 2005, an interview with the first Jewish PlaymateLindsey Vuolo, The Kosher Sutra sex instruction manual, or our favourite-a Rabbi Shmuley booblehead!.